Reviews and Comments

This beautiful book, written in 1903, is about race and America. It is a collection of essays; some history, some critique, some stories, some journals. They are gathered together to form a comprehensive picture of life for the African American at the turn of the 20th century. It’s author, W.E.B. De Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor.

Reading this book shook me and, more than once, left me speechless. However, this book is not a shocking book, full of the horrors of racism and America’s dark past. What shook me was the shear strength of character, integrity and humanity of De Bois. His prose is elegant, his observations keen and balanced, his conclusions measured, his stance humble. However, he is not passive, not content with the status quo and not very interested with sacrificial compromise.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro… two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

Du Bois has much and more to say about race in America over 100 years later. Similar to Between the world and me, it builds an unshakable picture of life for people of color in the United States. DuBois describes the internal mindset and self image that has developed in a culture with the baggage America has with race. This clearer understanding forced me to wrestle with my own self image and and acknowledge the role being white plays in my understanding of the world. That is why I find this book so important. Genuine opportunities for personal insight as a result of the lived perspective of another person are a gift. I am extremely thankful for the gift that I found in this book.

Originally published on mcmanus.io

I attended a book swap party for a friend not long ago. I came home with this book. I’d never heard of it, but how could I not be interested in Vonnegut?

This short book is wonderful. It’s nothing like I expected and everything I could have hoped for. In it, you follow the story of Howard Campbell Jr, as told by himself while in prison for war crimes committed during World War II. The reality is, he was a double agent, working effectively towards both Nazi and American ends.

The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.

What caught me off guard, was how a book that touches on so many of the ugliest parts of war is so full of compassion. The cast of characters is comical. A Nazi/American double agent, an unrepentant white nationalist and anti-Semite, a woman who tries to take over the life of her sister, a Russian spy who abuses his best friend, a drunk, excommunicated priest, and more. All of them sad, broken and ugly but all treated with compassion by Vonnegut. None flatly evil. All conflicted, full of potential but broken by war.

This is the second book I’ve read by Hạnh, the first being Living Buddha, Living Christ. To those unfamiliar, Hạnh is a buddhist monk from Vietnam. He became a well known peace activist during the Vietnam work[1]. During that time, he worked with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr[2] and Thomas Merton[3].

I have been deeply affected by King and Merton, which is what piqued my interest in Hạnh. I’ve also grown in respect for many of the tenants of Buddhism that I’ve come to understand. Yet, I want to be clear upfront, I read Hahn as a Christian, looking to grow further in my Christian faith. I do so not adversarially, looking for weaknesses or contradictions. I do so out of a posture of hopeful admiration. Trusting that all truth is God’s truth. Believing that my faith, and the tradition it has grown out of, has a limited perspective, constrained by culture and history. Searching for perspectives that will challenge me to reconsider my assumptions.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

This book is a gentle and charming walk through the principles of mindfulness, inter-being (how everything is connected) and living non-violently. It is an exploration in how “right” living will lead to “right” thinking. Orthopraxy to Orthodoxy for you christian nerds. I find that much of what Hạnh discusses can be fully integrated into christian beliefs. In fact, it has been instrumental for me in maintaining many of them. This is because so much of it focuses on practical, tangible actions. Stop, breathe, let go. There is no special prayer to say, no confused expectation of whether it will be answered. Just breathing. Sitting. Acknowledging your emotions and letting go of them.

This may have been obvious to you, but I always considered prayer an active, internal speaking of words . It’s been through the words of Hahn and monks of many other traditions that the view has changed. I’ve learned that prayer is broader, subtler and much quieter than I ever realized it could be. To sit still and silent, with my heart bent towards the love of the father, is as “spiritual” and important as saying the Lords prayer. The Hebrew word for the Holy Spirit is ruach, which translates to “air in motion”, or simply, breath. To focus on my breath is to connect with the Holy Spirit. These practices have shifted my faith from being one of the head to one of the heart.

Please, consider giving this short book a read. The language may seem flowery or indirect if you’re unfamiliar, but stick with it. They all work together to build a cohesive pattern of thought that is worth internalizing.

Footnotes and interesting links
1: Wikipedia Article on Hạnh
2: Nomination of Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize By Martin Luther King, Jr., 25 January 1967
3: “Nhat Hanh is my Brother” by Thomas Merton
The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing

Originally published on mcmanus.io

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery; a commonly accepted Christian truth that is rationally incomprehensible. In The Divine Dance, Richard Rohr attempts to explain it in a way that feels both familiar and completely foreign. Rather than the mystery being the end of the conversation, he uses it as an invitation to deeper understanding.

God for us, we call you Father.
God alongside us, we call you Jesus.
God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.
You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,
Even us and even me. Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness.
We can only see who you are in what is.
We ask for such perfect seeing—
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
Amen.

The book is profound and insightful. Rohr puts words to your unconscious and intuitive understanding of the nature of God. But he does not try to make it a comprehensive, systematic explanation. It never completely settles on the rational side of things. His instruction adds confidence and clarity to your experiential intuition over your logical.

Rational certitude is exactly what the Scriptures do not offer us. They offer us something much better and an entirely different way of knowing: an intimate relationship, a dark journey, a path where we must discover for ourselves that grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness are absolutely necessary for survival—in an always and forever uncertain world.

The traditional understanding of the Trinity is that it consists of three distinct beings existing in perfect relationship. The emphasis on the beings. Rohr emphasizes how the relationship, the space between the members of the Trinity, is the foundational component.

Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love.

This subtle shift in weight caused so much to click into place for me. Think about it: God (The Trinity) is love because he is relationship itself. This adds a whole new dimension to why isolation and disconnectedness are so destructive. When I become vulnerable, when die to myself, I participate in fuller relationship with those around me. But it doesn’t stop there. In this movement towards weakness and self emptying, I participate, in some way, with whatever is going on in the Trinity!

The Christian God’s power comes through his powerlessness and humility. Our God is much more properly called all-vulnerable than almighty.

Back to the book itself, it is not a book of quick answers or comprehensive solutions. The best explanation I can give is that it works to resonate with you. As it resonates, you will understand certain things with a little more clarity. Some parts of the book resonate more than others. I’m certain that’s a result of where I am in my life and how much I am capable of understanding now. I’m excited to come back to it in a couple years and see how my thoughts have changed, because I am certain they will.

Be prepared for a period of adjustment as you start to read this book. Especially if you’re from a traditional Protestant background and have not read anything by Rohr before. He a friar in the Franciscan tradition, which holds different views on the incarnation and atonement, among other things. Franciscans also draw heavily on mystical and contemplative interpretations of scripture. I found this very valuable, but it’s possible it all may be too big a jump for you to make.

Originally posted at mcmanus.io/2018/the-divine-dance-by-richard-rohr

Have you ever read Neal Stephenson? Can you tell when someone is way smarter than you and that compels you to listen? Do you enjoy when you’re confronted with ideas that are so fascinating that you struggle to believe an individual mind came up with them? Does all of that compel you to actually work through reading a book to completion? Then this book is for you!

So far, I’ve only read Seveneves and Anathem by Stephenson. I also picked up Snow Crash but put it down for the same reasons I almost put down Anathem. I walk away from these experiences in awe of the mind that can articulate such complex ideas.

Diax said something that is still very important to us, which is that you should not believe a thing only because you like to believe it. We call that ‘Diax’s Rake’ and sometimes we repeat it to ourselves as a reminder not to let subjective emotions cloud our judgment.

Anathem is the story of a monk in a slightly different world than Earth. He lives in a monastery exactly as you would picture it, except it’s full of (mostly) non-religious scientists and mathematicians. There is a lot of history as to why they live this way. There is also a very compelling purpose to the plot of the story as well. The slow revelation of that is what makes this book so enjoyable.

I have to be honest though, this book was work. It’s a thousand pages. Not only that, its full of made up words. Full of them! I think I understand why Neal did this, but it still kills me. Saecular instead of Secular. Fraa instead of Monk. Concent instead of Monastery. There are HUNDREDS of these words. It takes about 200 pages to make the translation in your head without much work. (Here is a glossary you should use).

I’m a complete sci-fi nerd. I love big mind-bendy ideas, lots of details, lengthy explanations, long dialogs, and complete histories. This book would be an easy 5 stars in my mind if it wasn’t for the words. THE WORDS. If you have a tolerance for that, lean in and read the book. It’s awesome. If not, it’s ok. I’ll enjoy the book for you.

Originally published on mcmanus.io/2018/anathem-by-neal-stephenson

Just Mercy is an autobiography of Bryan Stevenson, a criminal justice lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative. As he explained it to Rosa Parks, the EJI is:

Well, I have a law project called the Equal Justice Initiative, and we’re trying to help people on death row. We’re trying to stop the death penalty, actually. We’re trying to do something about prison conditions and excessive punishment. We want to free people who’ve been wrongly convicted. We want to end unfair sentences in criminal cases and stop racial bias in criminal justice. We’re trying to help the poor and do something about indigent defense and the fact that people don’t get the legal help they need. We’re trying to help people who are mentally ill. We’re trying to stop them from putting children in adult jails and prisons. We’re trying to do something about poverty and the hopelessness that dominates poor communities.

In this book, he tells the stories of the people he has helped over the course of his career. Innocent men and men with mental disabilities put on death row. Women wrongfully imprisoned. Children tried and imprisoned as adults. These are just a few.

In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice.

I will not lie, this book is a very hard read. At times, I found myself crying with a heart full of sadness and anger. I’m talking shoulder shaking sloppy crying. Yet, I also found myself shedding tears of hope, found in a new understanding of the profound connectedness of our humanity. This book left me a mess and I would not have it any other way. Profound joy and hope cannot be experienced without earth shaking sorrow and despair. Bryan gives you many stories that, if left on their own, would lead you to despair. But every one is accompanied by his tireless compassion, unshakable desire for justice and deep well of mercy. It’s in the juxtaposition that the book makes its most memorable and profound statements.

I reflected on how mass imprisonment has littered the national landscape with carceral monuments of reckless and excessive punishment and ravaged communities with our hopeless willingness to condemn and discard the most vulnerable among us. I told the congregation that Walter’s case had taught me that the death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?

Originally published at mcmanus.io/2018/just-mercy-a-story-of-justice-and-redemption-by-bryan-stevenson

Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer.

Like many of the Sci-fi Godfathers, Asimov writes grand, breathtaking stories with delightful simplicity. For the whole trilogy, I’d give it 4 stars. The part that confuses me though, is for the second time in the trilogy, I can’t give this individual book more than 3.There are considerable spans of times between the books. This leaves the only consistent character to be the myth, Hari Seldon, whom you’ve never met. The characters we do meet and know, though enjoyable, are not very relatable or complex. They’re all small parts in the grand picture that Asimov is building. That picture that hooked me.There are two fundamental parts to his exploration. The first is the power of the will and the purpose of human agency within the massive ebbs and flows of humanity. The second is the exploration of the role and power of religion. When there is something that seems so big, so inescapable, what power do you have to escape it? To stop it? Is it the mere belief that you are on the side of some bigger truth that tips the balance from defeat to victory? Does that belief make it real?

This was the moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits from its frozen, parent cliffs, and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride.

Perspective is a fickle thing. You can go about your days thinking you’re engaged with your life. That you’re working towards increasing in knowledge & understanding. Though you continue to hope to grow in depth and awareness, you feel like you’ve don’t a good job mining the depths of yourself and what it means to be human.Then, as if a freight train has passed with in inches of your face, you are startled into awareness that you are nothing more than kid swimming in a back yard kiddie pool.For me, Childhood’s End is the freight train and Arthur C. Clarke is the conductor.To any fan of SciFi, the premise of this book is simple, it’s concepts familiar, and it’s characters relatable. However, it’s profoundly engaging and completely delightful. At some point you realize this book was written in 1953 and you’re hit by the train.Clarke is a master.I’ve had long, involved conversations with several people about this book. Each one about different aspects of it. Many about thoughts that seemed like throw-aways during the course of the story but had a depth that only revealed itself over time.I will read this book again and probably very soon.

Rob Bell is excited about a lot of things, but what he is most excited about is the Bible. To those outside of the church there is the perception that the Bible is rigid and violent. Even those inside of the church have a complicated relationship with it. This book by Rob Bell is a breath of fresh air that tries to cast a vision of the Bible that is bright, hopeful, provocative, and inspiring.

Why bother with such a strange, old book? Because it’s a book about them, then, that somehow speaks to you and me, here and now, and it can change the way you think and feel about everything.

To those who are unfamiliar with Rob’s work, some back story is helpful. He was an evangelical pastor and author. He is a personality who at his very core is a pot stirrer. Like most interesting people who are doing worthwhile work, you will have an opinion about him. He became considered an outsider, and even a heretic, as a result of some of his writings. That hasn’t stopped him from continuing to explore what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century.

His work over the last several years has focused on speaking to those who are outside of the “Church.” It could be those who have never been in it or those who have left it. If you are a content Christian, Rob will seem dangerous to you. I do not think I can convince you otherwise. This book is for those that look at the Church and despair. For those that feel like the Church and the Bible has nothing to offer. For those who are a part of it, but struggle to make the pieces fit and find reason to stay.

In it he gives voice to many thoughts and emotions that I have experienced for years. Giving a clear voice to those emotions disarms them and lays the foundation to build on top of. The end result? After you get used to his quirky style of writing, his statements that seem a little over-the-top, and his weird sense of humor, you’re left with hope and excitement to continue onward.